


the end (and beginning) of all things

by khyloe



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 'I DONT NEED IT...I DONT NEED IT-', Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Rey (Star Wars), F/M, Force Bond, Grey Jedi Ben Solo, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jedi Ben Solo, No Rey Palpatine, Non-Linear Narrative, Rey (Star Wars) Has Issues, it isnt explicitly said but he is lol, like spongebob in sandy's crib when he didnt have water :, masks are important here, no TRoS, no palpatine at all actually, rey looking at the prospect of having actual friends, some elements taken from TFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:22:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26886574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khyloe/pseuds/khyloe
Summary: —And i must borrow every changing shape.She looked for him for years without even meaning to, the face of every tall man with slightly dark hair that she passed by  became the face of the Jedi in her dreams. They are fated to meet, and when they do, she will take him out of the equation.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	the end (and beginning) of all things

She looked for him for years without even meaning to, the face of every tall man with slightly dark hair that she passed by while visiting unimportant planets with the Knights became the face of the Jedi in her dreams, became her destiny. _An anomaly in the Force, my apprentice,_ her master had said. She agrees. It is her duty to bring balance and snuff out any and every threat to the greatness she's working so hard to achieve. They are fated to meet, and when they do, she will take him out of the equation.

It began with his voice. She heard his voice _first_. Strong and timid all at once. Earnest and young. Unsure of himself and yet absolutely steadfast in his uncertainty. Words in her head with no clear face attached to them, marking a border between anonymous and identified. She heard his voice with the addition of faint waves crashing in the background and the playful laughter of other children, not his, but definitely the laughter of other kids. She heard it as a child in the carcass of long forgotten and abandoned machinery in a desert wasteland. And as young as she was, as _confused_ as she was hearing this strange sound coming from seemingly out of nowhere, it brought her comfort in the coldness of her abode. 

She rarely takes off the mask anymore. Almost never. Or _is_ it never, now? It's gotten long past the point where it chafes and she feels only numbness now where it rubs against her skin. Rey —Kira— fancies it has grown into her face, that she couldn't remove it even if she wanted to.

She sleeps in it. Dreams in it.

He lacks a certain dignity, she finds. Why would the heir of the _Skywalker_ family _,_ of all people, be going on what appears to be smuggling runs in Jedi robes? What sort of high-minded—false, as all Jedi and Resistance and Light Side things are, but high-minded all the same—ideals could he be serving by participating in such an uncouth activity? It's almost vulgar. The descendant of such a prestigious lineage shouldn't be running around with the likes of rebel scum, helping them on missions. 

She watches him run about nonetheless, maneuvering and twisting and turning, saber strapped to his belt and his dark mop of hair flowing behind him from her side of their little connection, cloaked in shadows and unseen. It will be useful to know how he fights, she tells herself.

Sleep is beginning to elude her, as the First Order grows and expands. The eyes of her mask are always open, and she feels, sometimes, that her own are as well. How can she sleep? She is the crux of it all. The Supreme Leader has told her time and time again how she embodies the idea, the dream of uniformity and order and _power_. That as the First Order grows more powerful the galaxy will finally understand, finally comprehend what they are trying to achieve. What use is sleep to the dream of millions?

But she does sleep. She sleeps and dreams. 

And in her dreams, the mask grows. It creeps over her throat, down her chest, swallowing her head, pouring over her back.

He's just not very _good_ at being a Jedi the way his uncle is. He tries so hard and fails anyway. She feels the darkness inside him, similar to the one inside her. Except his swirls with the light, forming a muted grey. No blinding shine or dark pit, but thunderous and explosive all the same. 

In the back of her mind she wonders, even if they fought, would there be any meaning in her victory? Would it be enough?

She angrily shoves the thought away, thinking _No_. She cannot doubt her purpose. She cannot crack.

She is unbendable.

He has left his uncle’s school. She finds this out from one of their own, a spy in the Resistance that managed to gather the intel. The news surprises her, somehow, though she knows she felt it coming, felt his emotions during one of their wretched _meetings_ as they traded barbs with one another before this revelation. The fact that he has strayed from his family like this shocks her, fills her with a deep relief. Someone with no attachments, especially to a family like that, will be easier to deal with, quicker. Though ultimately she will find that this feeling of relief will mean nothing.

Before the destruction of Hosnian Prime, she steals a look at the crowd and smiles beneath her mask.

The mask is never smiling, never showing expression. She chose it for that very reason. People believe what their eyes tell them, and a blank expression offers neither reassurence nor mockery, it’s a simple blank state. 

The crowd is huge, and it thrills her. She thinks of all the other times the First Order had rounded up populations under their dominion, their protection. She imagines their faces. She could be any of those people: the young man who works in the blistering sun, the street-sweeper, the old man who begs on the street corner, the soldier, the housewife, the machinist, the teacher—any of them could don a mask and become her. 

The thought is dizzying, and she feels the contours of it's corollary forming in her mind :

If she took off her mask, she wonders, could she become any of them?

She feels the familiar thrum of the Force within her, burning. A person in a mask has a thousand faces, she thinks, and every one of them is true.

In their earliest meetings, he assesses her not with the hostility she was expecting, but with inquisitive curiosity shining in his dirt colored eyes. More interested in understanding the logistics of the bond than sharing fiery insults with her. He treats her more like a person than anyone in the First Order ever did. He isn't at all how she imagined him in her head.

That is the first unexpected thing, so tiny and insignificant, and yet perfectly positioned to destabilize her. The first small, insidious crack. A razor thin line, meandering toward collapse.

She tries to sleep in the afternoon, to rest. 

Dreams.

The mask coats her torso, seeps over her shoulders, down her arms, down her legs.

The Supreme Leader found her when she was young. Mumbling about some other _ungrateful child_ while simultaneously offering her shiny promises of home and belonging and telling her how she’s _so special,_ how he felt the tendrils of the Force buried deep inside her.

 _Not awake yet, but present,_ he had rumbled.

At that time, Rey didn't really understand what he meant and it took some time for the fear to completely leave her eyes (it never really does), accept his offer to finally leave her backwater world and reconcile with the admission ( _truth_ ) that her family had always been dead and buried in unmarked graves in the treacherous sands. 

Snoke waits with the patience of a monk.

Later, she will look back on this and give him thanks for opening her eyes, for making her see. 

Staring into his eyes is like staring into a mirror, except she is a mirror, too, and they reflect each other, back and forth into infinity. It matters not that they are, strictly speaking, light years away and not really in front of one another. 

And she has the mask on, she always has the mask on. 

A person in a mask has a thousand faces, but he has a thousand faces too, generations of the galaxy’s Jedi leading up to him. A hundred thousand lifetimes, burning through the centuries. He is ancient, and she is new, but both of them refract and reflect. He could be anyone, and so could she.

That he just so happens to be _himself_ is merely the indifference of fate. It isn't fair. But nothing is.

He turns and runs, and she runs after him, thinking _perhaps_ , and _maybe_ , and _I_ —

He disappears over the edge of a hill and she loses sight of him. The connection goes dead instantly. Without him in front of her, it is easy to remember herself. To remember Kira. To remember the destiny that waits for her if she can only grab it.

Sleep catches her.

And she dreams.

He stands before her in her dream. The mask covers her, fully and completely. There is only the mask. She is fully Kira. She can't even remember if that is her true name or not. But why would a person in a mask lie?

"Let me see you," he whispers to her. His hands reach out, touch the mask—

The gravity of him unbalances her, and she realizes furiously that he has already bent her in some way. The weight of him has pulled her in. The arc of her triumph sways towards him, through him.

There’s snowflakes sticking to her lashes on Starkiller when she sees him again. And despite their earlier meetings, she still finds herself feeling surprised when he appears in front of her in the flesh, the Force swirling around him in a frenzy as he glares at her.

He ended up not being what she expected at all. 

FN-2187 (Finn now apparently, as she heard him call him) fights surprisingly well for someone who’s never held a lightsaber before, but fleeting moments like these are always just that, moments, and she puts an end to it quickly enough. Brings her double-bladed saber down, aiming for his back, her shoulder burning where he managed to nick her a few moments before. He goes down, but the other gets up.

It’s the shift in his gaze that gets her attention. The hardening of his eyes and his grim determination make the adrenaline already coursing through her body sing even more. He’s positively electric now, his power flowing into hers and hers into his and she almost forgets herself because she wants to _smile_ in this moment. Can't stop the relief that settles in her bones along with the other kaleidoscope of emotions passing between them in this moment.The shared loneliness, the dreams, the nightmares. 

It felt right, like coming home. 

Rey wants to say the string of words trapped in her throat of _yes, yes. I feel it. I feel it too._

Instead, blurs of red and blue blind them both as they clash and dance in the snow melting all around them. 

Even when the ground splits between them his face is washed in blue. Glowing from the lightsaber in his grasp as he catches his breath, a look of _something_ on his face as he stares at her before he turns to leave, rushing to the traitor laying in the snow. 

Rey can’t exactly focus on anything except for the smell of burning flesh and the planet crumbling around her feet. She watches him leave anyway, wide and open eyed.

At night, she sleeps and dreams.

“Let me see you”, he whispers to her. His hands reach out, touch the mask—

 _(_ — _a person in a mask has a thousand faces, and so does he, but his hands are his and his alone_ — _)_

—reach _through_ it, reach into her, find her heart—

Her hand reaches back, and she touches him before she forces herself to wake.

She lays in the darkness of her chambers.There’s an itch, a pain on the right side of her face that she ignores as she stares unmoving at the ceiling through the holes in her mask.

He would bend her, if she let him.

She tells herself she’d rather break. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is honestly just Rey progressively realizing Things (tm) and going “oh NO” tbh


End file.
